Launched in July 2015 and named after the first two heads of the Department of Politics and International Studies (Prof Andrew Gamble and Prof Christopher Hill), the Gamble and Hill prize is our newest prize for sixth form students of Politics and International Relations.

We are delighted by the response to the competition; there have been so many brilliant entries, on a wide variety of topics in politics and international relations - with youth participation by far the most popular! We'd like to thank everyone who entered for their time and effort.

The Winners

The judging panel were looking for originality, personality and personal engagement with the topic. The quality of the film was less important than the content, but both of the top entries were also of a very high quality.

There were two films that were ranked top by the judges, and so we have two joint winners -

Livvy McComb, King Edward VI Five Ways School

Guste Rekstyte, King Edward VI Grammar School Sixth Form

The judges felt that Guste Rekstyte's entry on the war in Syria was notable for its "emotional power, technique and lack of point scoring". Livvy McComb's entry offered "a pointed critique of the first-past-the-post system...the case is very effectively made, not just on behalf of young people but of everyone.".

We asked both winners for their reasons for choosing their respective subjects -

Livvy McComb - "I instinctively decided to explore the first-past-the-post electoral system due to the recent general election. I remember feeling cheated as I watched news broadcasts on the 7th and 8th of May and wanted to express my frustration at the system’s poor representation of public opinion."

Guste Rekstyte - "The reason behind choosing Syria as our topic was simply because of its current relevance in news, however, instead of exploring the political machinations of the conflict itself, we chose to instead focus on a much more human side of it. In terms of a personal connection, it was my way of using my own resources and privilege to give someone my own age, namely Marah, a better chance to be heard. Particularly because currently, it has become easy to see Syria, and indeed Syrian refugees, as a statistic, and in doing so it can easily be forgotten that these are in fact individuals going through indescribable tragedies.Therefore, in making the film, we hoped to make the conflict seem less distant, and more personal."

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